Zeno's Paradox
by Camdalf
Summary: When his city is destroyed in a dawn attack, Perseus wanders into the wilderness alone and without purpose. When he is given a choice as to where his life will go, he choses the path that leads to fighting, wars, revenge, and eventually the modern day.
1. The Last Son of Sparta

Sunset.

The last light of the day was slowly but surely vanishing below the hills of Greece. The world was still, animals of the light winding down, making way for the creatures of the night. The day had passed like any other; Helios had risen in the east, and had driven the great chariot through the day and was now setting in the west. The snakes had hunted, and the rabbits hidden, but to one boy, this day, this ordinary day, had changed his world.

At the foot of a hill he stood, looking at the top, promising himself he would find rest at the summit, or see a town on the other side.

He had promised this same promise for many miles now; it was the only thing that kept him going. This well rehearsed lie gave him a small glimmer of hope, enough to begin the ascent.

And so, stepping off on his left foot, he began to climb. Each step felt heavier and heavier, each time he glanced at to the top it looked further and further away. Through his eyes, every shrub he passed looked the same. The veil of tears he had not let himself yet shed made every stone look the same. Every cloud, every blade of grass, every step of his path looked the same to the boy. And yet nothing was the same.

His life was in tatters. The world he had grown up in was now gone, he could never return to what once was.

Lost in his thoughts of grief and sorrow, the boy barely registered his arrival at the summit. He stood still for a moment, taking in his surroundings.

The top was a surprisingly flat plateau, dotted with shrubs and wild olive trees, and to his right was a small pool of stagnant water, left alone by even the wildest animals. The ground was covered made of dirt and gravel, with patches of long coarse grass every so often. He walked over to the end and looked down at the vast expanse below him. While not overly steep, the hillside was disappointingly bare. As was the rest of the land. He sighed. He had fallen for the lie yet again. There was no campsite at the top, no city at the bottom. To the boy the only living thing in the world were the plants and himself. No animals or men.

Men.

He shuddered at the innocent word.

Men had come to his home, men of fire and swords, controlling what seemed like the armies of Tartarus itself, and had laid waste to everything, living and dead.

His people, though hardy and strong, were no match for this force of darkness. He looked down at his hands, which were caked in dirt and blood. He dimly looked at his body, searching for cuts, and then he realised that the blood was not his, but his mother's.

_The man stood over her, knife dripping with the blood of her neighbours. He walked towards her, backed by both the sight of the inferno raging behind him and the screams of pain and terror from the inhabitants of the now ruined city. She cried in fear, tears running down her cheeks, and tried to crawl away. But she could not get far with the debris covering the floor. What was once a living space was now a junkyard. Her right hand slipped on a stone, and she collapsed on her back. The man looked and laughed. His laugh was a pleasant one, light and bubbly, and would have been welcome if not for the rest of his face. His mouth opened in a lopsided grin and the sound came out, but nothing else showed the humour. His cheeks were taught and his eyes were lifeless._

_The woman cried "Please! Please spare me! Go, I beg of you!"_

_But no response came from the Hyena._

"_Please! Please, I beg you leave, please, please why, oh Ares, please Zeus, spare me!"_

_Her lamentations were suddenly cut short as the man moved faster than she could register, and leant down close. He whispered: "Poor choice of last words." His black knife slashed once, and she was no more._

_Hours after the laughing man left, and hours after the raiders had moved on, the boy woke from his unconsciousness. He had been one of the first to fall, being knocked to the ground by a rider, who trusted that the horsemen behind him would trample the boy to death. But the boy awoke. His sleep had been plagued by the scene of his mother's death, over and over again. He scrambled up, and ran to his home, through the familiar streets that were now unrecognisable because of the collapsed buildings and people and animals littering the roads. He stumbled and fell twice, but that did not slow him down as he turned into his home._

_The dream was correct._

_His mother lay where she had been killed, among the same rubble he had seen. He clutched her body for a moment, and then he stopped, holding back his tears. He wanted nothing more than for his mother to wake up and comfort him, to tell him all would be okay again and he could cry his heart out. But it would never happen. His mother was dead, and soon was buried in a makeshift tomb, under the stones that had once been the walls she had once lived in._

_He climbed out of his city and looked over it, the once great and formidable warrior, fallen to a dishonourable dawn attack._

_The boy turned his back on his home and headed out into the wilderness of his homeland._

Sparta was burnt.

His home was rubble.

His mother, teachers, friends were dead .

The boy had yet to reach his sixteenth summer, but he was old, so old in his loss.

Who could do this? What monsters could have taken so much in a single day? And why, why was he left alive?

The boy looked at the blood red sky, and let out a howling scream of rage and frustration, he yelled for his home, for his family. He cursed the gods and all who had the power to stop such despicable acts. He screamed and howled until his voice was hoarse and his throat was dry.

This all fell on deaf ears. No one cared. The animals were either going to sleep or waking up. The creatures of death had not noticed his leaving and had long since returned to whatever hellhole they had crept from to gloat and count their pillaged goods.

The gods did not care for him.

He was alone.

His eyes closed and he stretched out, baring his chest to the sky, silently praying that Zeus would strike him down where he stood, if only to reunite him with the dead.

But no blow came.

He fell to his knees and hung his head in shame. This was not how he was raised. Spartan boys do not cry. Spartan boys do not beg for death. Spartan men hunt for revenge.

-X'sP-

He woke up the next day to find his surroundings drastically changed. The pool that he had drunk from was now clear, the grass soft and plentiful, and the trees and shrubs were trimmed.

"Good morning" said a voice.

Instantly the boy was up on his feet, looking around wildly for the source of the noise until his eyes rested on a woman standing in front of him. She was tall and beautiful, her brunette hair flowing gown her shoulders, framing a smiling face. Her dark green eyes glowed with power and she was cloaked in a green and yellow short-sleeved dress, which reached down to her bare feet. I her hand she held a single stalk of wheat as though it were a scepter.

"Who are you?" he croaked, his voice still affected by his yelling the previous evening.

"Names have power young man, and mine more than most, but you may call me Demeter."

"My lady" he cried, falling to his knees in respect. "Please, forgive me for my curses last night, I had just lost so much and-and needed to-"

"Say no more. We understand the circumstances and as such have let it be. Those were the cries of a young boy who has lost everything, and you are forgiven."

"Thank-you my lady." Getting to his feet he queried "If I may ask, why are you here?"

Demeter walked to the nearest olive tree, and picked and ate one of its fruits. "That is a question for you to answer. I am here to point you in one of two directions. One path leads to rest and warmth, a new, peaceful life, filled with joy and laughter." As if to illustrate her point, a smooth gravel path led off down the right side of the hill.

"The other is harder. Longer. Filled with pain, but with a greater reward." Another path, this one rocky and overgrown with weeds formed to the left.

"Choose."

He looked at each one. Inspected the ground it was made of. Looked to try and see the end.

"Which do the gods want me to choose?" He asked after a long period of silence.

Another moment of quiet was made, only to be broken by the laughter of the goddess.

"Oh my boy, this choice really is yours to make. The fates were given two life-strings on the day you were born, not unheard of, but still rare. This choice is yours alone to make, and either one is accepted by the gods." Her face calmed and turned serious, and she gave her last instruction.

"If I may offer you one piece of advice. There are wars coming. Terrible wars. You could be the deciding factor in many of them. The left path will lead you to these wars. There will be glory and revenge there." And with that, she disappeared in a flash of hot, bright light.

This was the turning point in his life. The boy knew that. Whichever path he chose would irreversibly change the course of his life, for better or worse. He knew the gravity of the moment. No matter where he went, one day he would look back and curse himself for not picking the other path. He sat, facing the way he had come. It was nearing midday, and the sun was beating down hard on his back. He thought what he wanted most in the world, and he knew it was his mother. And before he could come to a final decision, he registered that he was already walking down the path to his left.

The path that led to revenge.

A thousand miles away, a man stood watching as the boy made his way to his future. He waved the image out of existence and through his black beard he muttered: "Good luck, Perseus."


	2. Restless Wanderer

One month on the road.

One month of near constant walking to an unknown destination.

Perseus was tired. After all, who wouldn't be after all this time he had spent on the path?

Perseus pushed through a large area of thick sharp shrubs, not caring whether he lost sight of the path or not. In the early days of his journey he had religiously followed the path, going down cliffs and through raging waterways, but had long since found that the path found him, no matter where he went.

Once, he had dived into what he thought was a ditch to avoid two women with what looked like snakes for legs heading towards him, but he had soon found that it was in fact a rather steep, gravely hill, ending in brambles at the bottom. It had taken a while to get all the long thorns out. Somehow, he had landed right on the path. He had dived down the side of a hill and into the flora at the base, but the path continued from where he landed, as if it had led down there all this time. He had some fun after this discovery. When he had had a good nights rest, or a full meal, Perseus would dart off into the forests, or swim down the streams, and face a completely different direction to where the path was leading, but whenever he looked, the path was there, going in the new direction. He figured that it was destiny or pre-ordained, and so he gave up trying to lose the path, as the meals and rest became less and less frequent.

There was little food to be found. Often Perseus would have to settle for insects and beetles for his dinner; finding a dead animal was a rarity, and hunting or trapping was out of the question, he was too hungry to do much else than walk.

Sleep was scarce. Back home in Sparta, Perseus would often be found helping the younger boys cover their wounds that they had received from the brutal training regimen all Spartans went through. He had spent many a night sleeping outside in the cold, shivering, as he lay naked on the cold hard stony ground. Sleep would eventually come, but it became more and more restless as the journey progressed. Nightmares plagued him. There were images of his mother, lying in his arms; his city in flames, and all its people dead. Cold was nothing compared to the frost of darkness that seemed to have taken over his dreams.

Perseus was used to the hard life. But at least the walls of his city protected him. There were watchmen to keep the wild animals at bay. Farmers and hunters brought food and water to the dining halls. Here in the wilderness he was alone and vulnerable to the creatures of the night. He was thankful it was the height of summer, if Perseus was forced to make a fire, it would have attracted very unwanted attention.

And there had been close calls. The encounter with the snake women had been the first of many sightings of strange and terrible creatures.

On the twentieth day he caught a glimpse of what he first thought to be the cavalry of an army, until he saw that the men were in fact attached to the horses, providing the head and arms.

"Centaurs…" he whispered to himself.

He realised that the stories that his mother would tell him when they cooked together were true. Stories of great warriors killing great beasts, and now he was seeing that world with his own eyes! He, like every other Spartan, knew the gods existed, but he had never been convinced that the monstrous beasts of the tales roamed the earth too. Now that he had proof that he had seen with his own eyes, the world seemed much more fantastic and dangerous than ever before. Meeting Nymphs and Satyrs would be an experience that he was sure he would enjoy, but he had heard of creatures like the Cerberus, the great hellhound that guarded the gates of the Underworld. He prayed that he never had to see any such beasts, let alone fight them.

Every slightly unusual thing that Perseus saw after the revelation of the magical world he treated with extreme caution. A branch that moved, a rock falling down a hill, these he saw as a potential threat. His upbringing in Sparta taught him that enemies were everywhere, and that only constant vigilance and trusting your instincts would save you in dangerous situations.

Near the end of his journey (though he did not know it at the time) Perseus was walking through an uncommonly smooth patch through a section of forest, when he had heard a trampling coming his way. Before his mind could process what was happening, his instincts had already taken him up the tall oak tree to his left. Not a moment too soon. At the far end of the path came a creature that belonged in nightmares and the stories that his mother told. An enormous boar, the size of his house. Its tusks were as long as the spears the Spartan men carried, twice as sharp, and as thick as Perseus' own chest. They were yellow and covered in patches of dried blood. From its snout came hellfire, singeing the grass every time it snorted, and its mouth was constantly blowing out thick pillars of smoke. The hide was covered in thick matted bristles, each one looking long, hard, and sharp enough to be a deadly dagger. The tail was unusual for a boar, as it was long, but also tipped with a ball of smaller tusks. Everywhere the creature walked, the tail would swing round and crush and break anything in its path. But the worst were its eyes. It had no pupils to speak of, and glowed brightly with every colour of the spectrum, slowly changing between them. Each colour showed a different horror to Perseus. The poisonous yellow, invoking scenes of a plague. Orange, like the fire that had consumed his home. The red face of a strangled man. Grey, choking smoke. Black death. Perseus could not move even if he wished to, the fear paralysing him, holding him to the tree. As the boar passed underneath him its tail swung to the tree opposite, thankfully leaving him alone and unharmed.

Perseus stayed in the tree for many more hours after the beast had left before he could convince himself that it was safe to climb down.

At last, his long journey came to an end.

Perseus sat in a tree, looking at the stars shining above him, millions upon billions of miles away. He rested on the branch with his hands behind his head and legs stretched out, a balancing act he had become fairly proficient at, when he noticed a glow on the side of a mountain in the distance. Instantly alert, he jumped down off the tree and made his way to the light. It had been a month since he had last seen a human being, so as dangerous as the situation might be; he truly felt that he needed to check it out.

An hour into his cautious walking, Perseus noticed that he was in fact still on the path. He was meant to go to this mountainside. That did not fill him with confidence, on the contrary, if anything it filled him with more dread. Whatever was at this light would most likely be a major factor in which way his life played out. Such a meeting with a person only comes maybe once a lifetime. As Perseus climbed higher up the slope, it became more apparent that the light was glowing from inside what seemed to be a small cave. He made the final push up and peered over the bottom of the cave floor, looking inside, searching for any living thing.

Nothing.

Apart from a campfire and some boulders, the cave was empty.

Somewhat disappointed, Perseus realised that whoever lit the fire must have long since left. Sighing deeply at the fact that he would have to continue walking, he plopped himself down on one of the boulders that scattered the cave. He thought it was a bit soft for a rock, and then it moved and yelled at him "Get off me you inbred imbecile! Can't you shove your arse somewhere other than my face?"

Perseus did the only thing an exhausted kid does when confronted with living rocks, and fainted.

A splash of water brought Perseus back to consciousness, and the yelling from a boy next to him certainly woke him up:

"Get up you lump of fat!" The source of the voice then promptly sat on him saying "How do you like it when someone sits on you?"

The taunting was interrupted when a much deeper, softer voice quietly said "Get off him now Achilles, he's awake now

"Alright Chiron, you're the master."

The voice, named Achilles, slowly stood up and stretched out his hand to help Perseus up off his feet. Cautiously, he took it and was grateful when the other boy helped him up.

Perseus stood in front of his hosts and cautiously examined them.

To his left stood the boy that had helped him up, who was grinning widely, showing all his teeth, and rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"Hey, sorry about that, but, you know, I thought you'd slept long enough."

"How long was I out?"

"About fifteen minutes. Anyway, I'm Achilles, and it's your pleasure to make my acquaintance."

With that, Achilles stuck out his hand for Perseus to shake, only to yank it back at the last moment, smoothing his hair in the process.

"Like that move? Something I've been working on. It's going to be huge."

Then Chiron spoke: "That's enough now Achilles. He's tired and has travelled far. Leave him be."

Turning his attention on his guest, he asked, "What is your name child?"

It was then that Perseus noticed that something was amiss. This Chiron person wasn't a man, he was a centaur! One of those creatures that he had seen while he walked! This was a unique experience to say the least. Perseus could not help but stare, his eyes bugging out as he struggled to get his answer out.

Achilles nudged him hard in the ribs "Hey, kid. Answer him."

Breaking out of his trance, he stammered out his name, to which Chiron looked relieved at.

"At last. Two weeks ago I received a message from the gods to make my way to this specific location, to await a survivor of the destruction of Sparta that the lady Demeter had sent. They said his name was yours. I surmise that you are that same Perseus?"

"Yes sir" came the reply.

"Good. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Chiron, the trainer of heroes. This is Achilles, my pupil and the son of Themis."

"Trainer of heroes? Is that what I was led here for? To be trained to be a hero?"

"Yes, if you wish. Without wishing to brag, I have trained many of the greatest demigod heroes of the age, aiding them on their travels and acting as an all round conscience."

Perseus blinked twice. "But I'm not a demigod."

"Aren't you? Tell me, have you ever seen anything that shouldn't exist? Has your body ever reacted before you even realise what is happening? The gods have taken an interest in the outcome of your life, you have been visited by Demeter herself, and the mere fact that you can see _me_ and are having this conversation is proof enough."

This shocked Perseus. If what Chiron had said was true, he was the child of a god! He had always assumed that his father was an unassuming soldier in the Spartan army who had taken a shine to his mother and had spent the night with her. Most of the other boys he hung out with had that themselves, and he figured he was no different. He had never asked his mother about it, never wanted to. He wanted her to feel like she was enough for him, that he didn't need another parent. Now he wished he had been curious.

"Which god?"

"I am unsure. That is for you to discover on your own. I do sense great power in you though."

This was a lot to process. Perseus had an immortal father, somewhere in the heavens. He now had something to set himself apart from the others. Growing up in Sparta had made him hardy, and a proficient survivalist and fighter, but he had no identity, no individuality. He was just another face in a sea of faces. Now he was special. He looked at Chiron and whispered "Okay. Lord Chiron, will you train me?"

The moment was tense with excitement and possibilities, and was then ruined when Achilles burst out laughing, and breathlessly, he exclaimed

"Bahahahaha! Oh that is fantastic! Lord Chiron! What a way to get in his good books! That'll stroke the old ego! Good job Percy! Hahahahaha!"

Grumbling and shooting a dirty look Achilles' way, Perseus asked again. "Sorry. Chiron. Will you train me."

"Pay no attention to Achilles. You don't have to call me lord, child, and of course I will train you. Now go to sleep. Get some rest. I will make sure that this one," He jerked his head towards Achilles "doesn't wake you."

Thankfully, Perseus made his way over to a corner in the cave and curled up on the ground, and for the first time since his mother had died, he slept peacefully.


End file.
